21 Apr 2010: SEQ: Gold Coast hits the jackpot yet again

[ozbob]

Media Release 21 April 2010

SEQ:  Gold Coast hits the jackpot yet again

RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport commuters has welcomed the additional public transport services for the Gold Coast announced today (1).

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"The Gold Coast will have extra train and bus services from the 27th April.  We welcome those services, however long standing problems on other lines need attention and additional services too."

"The loading statistics in the TransLink Tracker are our in our opinion a poor way of assessing loading on our network.  The definition of overloading of passengers standing for more than 20 minutes, and in the case of the Gold Coast south of Beenleigh distort the actual reality.  The Gold Coast line appears to have a higher overloading problem than is the actuality, whilst a line like Ferny Grove which has  serious overloading doesn't appear in the data as having an overloading problem as journey length is less than 20 minutes."

"The standard for train frequency on the network should be 15 minutes east of Ipswich and south of Caboolture, more frequent at peak times, this will then encourage public transport use. Early finish on Sunday needs revision as well.

"There are some other problems that need attention.

Some examples:

Monday to Friday Ipswich to Rosewood:
Train leaves Ipswich for Rosewood at 4.38pm, the next service for Rosewood is 5.51pm.  Amazing!!  Worse peak frequency than off peak.  This gap needs urgent attention.

Shorncliffe Line:
Departing Central in afternoon peak:  3:51 and then 4:29.  That's a 38-minute gap!  The following service is 22 minutes later so an extra service and reshuffle would be the ideal solution.
Departing Shorncliffe in morning peak:  7:23 and then 7:49.  26-minute gap that could be solved by shuffling the next 3 trains forward by 10 minutes.

Every hour gap is totally unacceptable. Ferny Grove Line has hour gaps preceding the last train Mon-Thu, between the 1st and 2nd trains Sat am, between 1st,2nd, and 3rd inbound trains Sun am, and between 1st,2nd,3rd,4th, and 5th outbound trains Sun am. There are plenty of examples of hour gaps on other lines too.

Ferny Grove has a 21/23min gap between the 06:45am ex Ferny Grove and 07:06am ex Ferny Grove(exp)/07:17am ex Mitchelton. The 07:06 ex Ferny Grove is often very overcrowded by Enoggera. The is also an annoying 18 min gap in the late am peak caused the 2nd inbound express (which has loads of spare capacity).

The two pm outbound Ferny Grove expresses cause a 20min gap between 4:37 and 4:57 ex Central, and 21min gap between 5:03 and 5:24 ex Central for stations that it skips (Windsor-Gaythorne). Really annoying!

Cleveland Line has a 23min gap for stations Wynnum Central to Buranda which are skipped by the 1st inbound am express.

Caboolture Line has a 30min gap between 6:06pm and 6:36pm ex-Central to Caboolture.

Nearly 30 years ago in 1980 (shortly after electrification began) there were services from Salisbury to the City at 7.28am, 7.38am, 7.51am, 8.05am and 8.21am with no gap greater than 16 minutes.  Today there are services from Salisbury to the City at 7.23am, 7.36am, 7.54am(3 cars), 8.16am(3 cars) and 8.22am with gaps in the services of up to 22 minutes (an increase from 16 min).  This is made worse by the trains before and after the 22 minute gap only being 3 car sets. Translink needs to mandate that peak hour train services need to run at least every 15 minutes and that 6 car sets be used unless it can be demonstrated the loading only warrants the use of a 3 car set (such as Doomben & Rosewood).

Anti-peak flow:  For example at Indooroopilly there's a city train at 5:03pm followed by 5:30pm.  Given that this station has 15min frequency daytime off peak, that's a bit of a shocker.

Gap on the Sunshine Coast line weekday evening.
7:29pm Nambour, next is 9:30pm Nambour service.  This is very inconvenient to punters heading past Caboolture.
Three car leaving at 8.30pm or thereabouts would be a big benefit.

Cleveland line trains departing Roma Street
4:07pm: Not anywhere near full, can always get a seat and people can get on at South Brisbane, South Bank, Park Road and Buranda without any hassle.
4:32pm: Absolute full to the brim every day with people who knock off at 4pm. Get on at Roma St and always standing. People getting on at South Brisbane, South Bank, Park Road and Buranda always end up jammed in up against the door."

References:

1. http://www.translink.com.au/mediarelease.php?id=124

2. http://download.translink.com.au/about/0910q2_tracker.pdf

Contact:

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org